Why I Think "Getting a Job" Is Already Outdated
I saw this tweet from a conference/Twitter friend recently, and it got me thinking about "jobs" in general (Eryn is super cool, by the way. You should totally follow her and stuff).
It also reminded me of this CNBC article yesterday:
Nix the C-suite, soon blockchain will let armies of free agents run companies.
This may be one of the first mainstream articles I've seen discussing DACs/DAOs in a very positive light. It goes well with my recent decision to join the eosDAC launch team: A Big Step Towards Our Decentralized Future: I've Joined the eosDAC Launch Team!
The blockchain space has been so good to me (financially, relationally, professionally, spirtually, philosophically, and more). And yet, I've never had a blockchain "job."
Now, let me pause for a moment to recognize the elephant in the room.
priv·i·lege
noun
- a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
I get that I'm privileged. It wasn't always that way, and I know what it's like to go without, but I currently enjoy a very wonderful position in life. I built my own business for the last ten years, 6 of that working for myself with my business partner and team full-time which allowed me to explore interesting technologies like Bitcoin, which I've been tweeting about since 2013. Having that freedom, security, safety, and flexibility to spend time exploring crazy technologies like the blockchain ultimately allowed me to pay of my house and just this year I sold my business to my business partner to focus on this space full-time.
So what have I been doing the last 4 months?
That's what this post is about. I want to answer Eryn's tweet with something practical that makes sense for anyone exploring employment opportunities in this new world of tokenomics. I'm not sure of the best way to do that since this new model allows for individualized, distributed specialization. I guess I'll just start with myself as an example.
First off, I've been actively blogging here on Steemit. As you can see from my wallet, that has been very lucrative. Additionally, I've been a STEEM Witness which has also paid very well. Thankfully, I haven't had to spend these tokens to live on (yet).
For those not as familiar with cryptocurrency, you may be asking, "But is this real money?"
Yes, with a 24-hour volume above $50,000,000 it's very real and liquid enough to easily move in and out of.
Steemit is a lot more than just financial rewards to me, and I understand my experience here is not typical, but I also think it's not impossible for those like me who've been blogging for 14+ years, involved in technology, invested in bitcoin, etc... (For tips on success via Steemit, see SteemitIsToMe: Relationships, Reputation, and Rewards).
In addition to STEEM, I've also been learning quite a bit about BitShares and various trading strategies:
- My Altcoin Investments: A Steemit Story
- Playing in the Margins: bitUSD and BitShares on Open Ledger
- Reading the BitShares Whitepaper
- Questions from a BitShares Newbie
- A Simple Example of Shorting the U.S. Dollar With BitShares
- 9 Day bitUSD Loan Result: 19,821 BitShares and 199 ZAPPL for Free
- Are you Shorting Fiat Currency yet?
- I Got Margin Called on HERO Today. Things Don't Always Go Up.
- Do Cryptocurrency Speculators Fear Utility?
I've been learning about projects like SmartCash and running master nodes:
- My SmartCash Story
- I Bought Some More SmartCash
- I Finally Took the Loss
- SmartCash is Blowing Up! Social Capital and the Warm Feeling of Being Lucky!
- Teaching Cryptocurrency to the Next Generation: My Son Just Bought $8.33 More SmartCash
- SmartNodes Are Among Us and SmartCash Price Is Rising!
- Scripts for Managing Multiple SmartCash Smart Nodes on One Server
I've been an early super fan of EOS, following it since the ICO started last year:
- Say No to FOMO. EOS ICO: A Call to Rationality
- Could EOS Become the Most Widely Distributed ICO Ever?
- The Irrational Trader
- Why Am I Such a Fan of DPOS Blockchains Like STEEM and BitShares?
- How To Buy and Secure Your EOS
- So You Want to Learn About EOS...
And of course, my latest passion, eosDAC:
- A Big Step Towards Our Decentralized Future: I've Joined the eosDAC Launch Team!
- Reminder: the eosDAC Airdrop Happens on April 15th at 01:00 UTC!
- The eosDAC YouTube Channel Was Taken Down and We Need Your Help!
- The eosDAC Airdrop Day 2 is Underway!
I could go on and on about other projects I've talked about like AcademyToken and RavenCoin along with others that totally failed (* cough * CryptoHunt * cough *). I put these lists together not expecting anyone to read through them all, but because it's helpful to me as a reference when need to find what I've already written on a topic. :)
In short, I've been doing a lot of things! I've been busy every day working to add value which includes doing interviews with people like Wade Peterson, Terry Brock, David Pakman, encryptdcouple, Kenny Palurintano, Ashe Oro, Kirill Kich, and maybe more I'm not remembering at the moment. I've done some consulting and advising as well. I've written code to create reports like Exchange Transfer Report and the The Witness Voting Engagement Report.
My point here is to show how I've taken my specific skills (blogging, communicating, programming, trading and economics, etc) and leveraged them to add value in the cryptocurrency/blockchain space for which I've been richly rewarded.
How Can You Get Involved?
I really do think anyone can do a unique version of this. This is just my personal, privileged example of doing what I do. You can take what you do also and connect with over over 1,591 cryptocurrency projects listed on Coin Market Cap to find something that not only excites and fulfills you, but is richly rewarding as well!
Sometimes it's as simple as taking what you're passionate about and finding a blockchain company working in that space. If they are a legitimate project with a real team, it's possible they already have real money to pay you to be awesome. Some of these projects have millions of dollars in token value and are scrambling to hire people in all areas from programming, to marketing, to evangelism... anything a "normal" company needs, they need also.
The best way to get started, in my opinion, is to do some research! Join their Slack, Telegram, and/or Discord channels and get to know the team. Start blogging about what you're learning as you learn it. People love to see others get excited about their projects and will often share your blogs or vlogs with their entire community. As you continue to add value, you may find them offering you tokens as a thank you or something more structured like a full-time position. Ideally, you can stay flexible and look for things like worker proposals where you can get paid directly from the blockchain for a project you create or a project someone else is looking to get done.
I'll give some examples:
- Go through the BitShares forums looking for worker proposals.
- Check out the open Smart Cash proposals or create your own.
- Find a Dash budget proposal you want to help with or again, create your own. Ben Swan getting funded by Dash is a great example.
- You can also open a really wide net and check bitcointalk.org or Reddit. There's even a Jobs4Crypto subreddit.
Ultimately, I think your best bet is to do some research on the various cryptocurrency projects in the space. Start with stuff like this 100 cryptocurrencies described in four words or less article. Branch out from there to the other 1,400+. Find something you're absolutely passionate about and then connect with their team to add value. Not in a "Hey, can I get a job?" way. That's just annoying. Instead, start finding needs and filling them. Become a valuable member of the community. Add so much value that they want to pay you to keep doing what you're doing.
That's where the magic happens. Doing what you love and would do for free anyway while also getting paid in tokens that are going up in value exponentially (granted, they are a bit volatile which is where things like bitUSD come in handy).
I think the future will be a version of gift economy, collaborative commons, and tokenomics all rolled together. I've been saying since 2013 how disruptive bitcoin technologies are. People are starting to listen.
The first step is to understand what cryptocurrencies and blockchains are. I'm trying to help with that with some free videos I put together at understandingblockchainfreedom.com. It's also important, IMO, to understand some economics and the very nature of financial value itself.
Yes, it's a bit overwhelming. Yes, it takes a lot of effort. Yes, teaching experience is hard. It's also really, really worth it. The value of the freedom to wake up every day and work on whatever I want to is beyond words. The peace of mind knowing my family is financially taken care of because of these magic internet tokens created out of nothing is amazing. :)
As I talked about recently, exponential change is coming, and I want to help as many people like Eryn as I can get in front of the change and benefit from it.
I hope this helps you think differently about the opportunities available to you. Anyone with a computer, an internet connection, and some time can contribute. If we're successful in decentralizing and distributing opportunities, anyone can find their own privileged niche as well. We all have a role to play.
What's yours?
And most of that volume is concentrated on only 3 exchanges: Bittrex, Binance and Upbit. Just 3 exchanges!!!
No Coinbase yet, no Bithumb, etc...
Not to mention the fact that Steemit is a microbe compared to the major video and social media sites in terms of daily active users.
There's a lot of opportunity for this blockchain of opportunity. :)
Being an employee is an old-fashioned source of income and you're like a prisoner of the four corner of your office or where ever your workplace be. The best choice is being self-employed doing some business of your own or the latest one, being a crypto trader or being a steemian that keeps steeming :)
I am definitely no programmer, but my transition to the token economy is now taking hold. Especially with exchange rates turning more favorable to Steem and SBD. I have been on Steemit for just under four months and it has been an amazing journey so far.
I do have the advantage of being located in Peru where my Steem will go much further that say New York, London or Beijing. Having this advantage allows me to dedicate more time to Steemit and it is starting to bare fruit. The next hurdle is the conversion options to local currency to use to purchase say: food, pay rent and bills etc.
I see steemit become multifaceted in terms of its offerings. I think that will be dependent of the particular community within the blockchain. I see so many opportunities on here. Not only that, include all the tech or apps created on top of Steem... wow!
Steem is planting trees, I would have never thought it feasible, but I was very quickly proven wrong. But that is the beauty of this new tech and space, it is all to be discovered yet. That for me is very exciting and I intend to use it to benefit others as much as possible.
You're doing a fantastic job so far, and it's fun to watch. :)
I hope more local currency conversion options open up for you. Hopefully you can start building a community of people there who understand the value of STEEM and start wanting to purchase some themselves and use it for their own local economy.
The new face of "work" is certainly an interesting idea to speculate on. With blockchain technology and the increasingly automated nature of "traditional" work, it wouldn't surprise me if we move towards a system of "microrewards," not unlike Steemit.
Except-- you give a piece of useful advice somewhere, you get a reward. You provide a snippet of code of an app-- you get a reward. You offer a suggestion to help someone's permaculture project-- you get a reward. You don't really have "a job," you just do a bunch of things. You don't have an an "employer;" you work for LOTS of people, or for "the world."
I started speculating on this some 20 years ago-- my wife and I dubbed it "patchwork economics." You don't do any one thing that earn you "a living;" you do lots of things that add up to a living.
It's starting to look a lot less speculative than it did, even 20 years ago.
Interesting read!
Wow, I love that idea. Rewarded for providing value, not having an identity wrapped up in a "job."
Exactly! And it develops the idea that we all have more "value" than just "being a doctor" and "being a developer" and so on.
(Sorry, it was late last night when I wrote this comment, and my brain was a bit fuzzy, and I didn't fully flesh it out...)
In some sense, it's the ultimate incarnation of "Anarcho-Capitalism" (I don't really like that term, though... but it'll suffice), married to a sort of functional collectivism in which we're all accountable for ourselves, but we're also intricately accountable for everyone.
"Companies" may continue to exist, but they will have no — or very few — "employees;" the employees may just be a small group of founders/admins who oversee a network of "contributors." In a way, we may see a great increase in quality and efficiency because every organization now can bid out every task to a talent pool that — in essence — is the entire world. Each one of us becomes both a "provider" and a "consumer."
And now we have blockchain technology and things like "smart contracts" to to actually run such an economy in the logistics/functional sense. Previously the idea has always been somewhat rejected because people say "That sounds very utopian and cool and all, but it would be a logistical IMPOSSIBILITY."
Maybe not anymore.
Of course, there's always the Human Factor to consider... you and I might welcome and embrace the freedom, independence and accountability... but a lot of people might not. SO the next challenge becomes how to find pathways through which the "undermotivated" can still be fairly compensated contributors.
Blockchain could truly give us free market and merit-based employment. No more corruption!
That sounds like a great plan to me!
I have been thinking along the same lines recently. I have begun learning programming to have this kind of flexibility. Unfortunately it is a slow road for me. At least I am beginning somewhere by participating in Steem (which is nice for some extra spending money). Just need those extra skills to really have job freedom.
Thanks for sharing.
Good luck! Steem is a great place to start. They released some tutorials recently also! Check it out: https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/dev-portal-update-2-ruby-javascript-appbase-api-calls-testnet-documentation
I think "real work" is good. I might even do some of it. lol
I'm all about real work! I just don't think it will look like it has before.
Very inspirational! Thanks for sharing this.
I have placed several online Advertisement willing to take people to the airport in exchange for crypto currency. Still haven’t had anyone take me up on this offer. I still get plenty of cash offers though.
Yeah, it's still very, very early in the cryptocurrency world for every-day people to start asking to pay (and be paid) in cryptocurrency. We'll get there eventually though.
@lukestokes I just read an old post by @jerrybanfield about witness in which you gave several long comments and as I already follow you decided to come here to ask some questions. There was a mention of upvotes - My questions:
Thanks for you time in advance.
Hello.
Thanks Luke